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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28522980">Hideaway Creeper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rayvee/pseuds/Rayvee'>Rayvee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>To be Inhuman [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>I know nothing about pre-season 5 Doc lore so I'm ignoring it, Set between seasons 2 &amp; 3, Tag wranglers stop tagging Hermitcraft as RPF challenge, but it's really light, i guess, idk what this is, joking mentions of attempted cannibalism, pre-hermitcfraft Doc angst, spontaneous exploding, written by someone who has seen neither</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:40:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,663</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28522980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rayvee/pseuds/Rayvee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Doc is a recluse: he doesn't live with other people. He <i>can't</i> live with other people. </p><p>Of course, other people will always find him. Usually when that happens, he moves on.<br/>But these two are different.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Xisumavoid &amp; Docm77, ZombieCleo &amp; Docm77, ZombieCleo &amp; iJevin, iJevin &amp; Docm77</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>To be Inhuman [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hideaway Creeper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just as a heads-up, I know nothing about pre-Season 5 Doc lore. Or... Pre-Season 5 Hermitcraft lore in general. But I wrote this anyway, so...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When it came down to it, there were two types of people: those who frequently interacted with others, and those who didn’t.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Docm77 was considered one of the latter. It wasn’t that he disliked people; it was fear that kept him to stay distant. Fear that he’d hurt anyone he got too close to. Fear that one small mistake could cost him everything. <br/>
</span>
  <span>It had happened before, and it’d been awful. He didn’t want to risk it happening again. <br/>
</span>
  <span>So he hid away, in a fortress built in a jungle, far away from the worldspawn, farther out than most players ever travelled. He protected his base, with elaborate redstone traps. He built things, machines, pushing the limits as far as he could.<br/>
</span>
  <span>He decorated his base, made it look as beautiful as possible.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Part of him wondered what the point was, if nobody would ever see the complicated machines, the detailed decorations. But he kept building, kept creating, kept tinkering, trying to drown out his feelings.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Trying to pretend he wasn’t lonely.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first time it had happened, he’d lost his eye and his arm. One minute he’d been having a conversation with someone; not a friend, not an acquaintance. Some random passerby. He’d never asked the other player’s name. One moment he’d been giving directions to another’s base, the next he’d been gripped with some strange, instinctive urge. He’d felt something inside him light, and then he was back in his bed, missing both part of his face and his right arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With one hand, no depth perception, and his decent-at-the-time redstone knowledge, he’d managed to build a clunky but functional prosthetic limb, and then a far better one. Recognising that having a chunk of his face missing freaked people out, his next move was a new eye.<br/>
</span>
  <span>The second time it happened, he’d been walking with a friend who’d long since faded in his memory. The death log had terrified him; it had said he’d been blown up by a creeper. Not Doc, a creeper. There’d been no death log for him.<br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d gone back to the crater, later. The only evidence he’d been there was a mangled eyepiece. He’d had to construct a new one. He was just glad he hadn’t lost his arm, that time; he’d spent several sleepless nights as it was trying to understand what was happening to him.<br/>
</span>
  <span>The third time, he hadn’t lost anything; he guessed his body had adjusted to whatever was happening. And it had </span>
  <em>
    <span>kept </span>
  </em>
  <span>happening, over and over, until he had to keep his distance or risk spontaneous explosion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d always understood he resembled a creeper; the mottled green skin, the facial structure, the claws on his feet that made it impossible to wear shoes. He’d joked about it, had great fun sneaking up on people from behind in the middle of the night.<br/>
</span>
  <span>He’d just never thought to wonder if there were other, subtler traits as well, but then he’d started exploding, over and over, soon to the point where it happened every time he’d gotten within blast radius with a player. He saw the way it affected people, the way they started to keep their distance. They were scared of him.<br/>
</span>
  <span>He was scared of himself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d left that world behind; tried to start over, to try again. But he’d failed, had fled that world too. And then again, and again. There’d been one player who’d followed him for a while; who’d always tried to track him down, wherever he went. Who hadn’t seemed to mind being blown up at regular intervals. Then again, maybe he had. It was hard to tell what was going on behind that mask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d lost track of Doc, or he’d perhaps drifted away- he hadn’t been there to bother him the last few worlds. Who knew? Doc had deliberately tried to shake him. Maybe he’d actually succeeded.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Still, he kept an eye on the ever-changing player list, just in case.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d been mining- searching for valuable resources, trying to convince himself the mobs were only ignoring him because they couldn’t see him in the dark.<br/>
</span>
  <span>He’d thrown stacks into the sorting system and headed up to his living quarters, intending to find something to eat.<br/>
</span>
  <span>Then he’d heard voices.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, have you got a red four?”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Go fish.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>There was a heavy sigh, and Doc was left feeling confused. This place was supposed to be- well, nothing was completely </span>
  <em>
    <span>impenetrable, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but he’d gotten as close to it as he could manage. <br/>
</span>
  <span>He peeked around the corner, carefully. He could make out two players- from their voices, one man and one woman- who had constructed two chairs and a table </span>
  <em>
    <span>in the middle of his base</span>
  </em>
  <span> and were playing a </span>
  <em>
    <span>card game</span>
  </em>
  <span>. <br/>
</span>
  <span>For once, he wished he’d actually lit his base up; he could never be bothered to, considering how he’d already spawn-proofed it, and now it was apparently biting him in the ass in the most bizarre way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, here he is!” The woman’s voice came from the figure on the right, and Doc could now make out long hair running to about her waist. The other figure started packing up the cards, placing them in the pack they must’ve bought with them.<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Who are you and what are you doing in my base?”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“I’m Cleo, and this is Jevin.” The woman gestured at herself and her companion in turn. “We’re friends of X.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>Doc blinked. So Xisuma had found him after all. So why hadn’t he come himself, then?<br/>
</span>
  <span>“That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in my base.” He repeated, crossing his arms. He was careful to keep his distance, though for once the instinct that led to him exploding wasn’t niggling at the back of his mind.<br/>
</span>
  <span>He wasn’t sure what was going on there.<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Well, I’m not sure if you know, but X is currently running an invite-only world- we call it Hermitcraft, we’re actually heading into the third world- And X sent us to ask you if you would maybe like to join?”<br/>
</span>
  <span>Doc couldn’t help but do a double-take. Xisuma wanted </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>to </span>
  <em>
    <span>what?</span>
  </em>
  <span> He </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>know Doc had a tendency to explode whenever he got near another player, right? Maybe he’d gotten a concussion or something. <br/>
</span>
  <span>Then again, the man had stubbornly tried to befriend Doc for quite a long time…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, if you think there’s going to be problems just because you’re a creeper hybrid, there aren’t.” Jevin seemed almost bored with the whole situation. Judging from the shape of the silhouette, he’d even put his feet up.<br/>
</span>
  <span>“We have these things-”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Wait, creeper hybrid?” Doc echoed. The terminology was new, not a phrase he’d ever heard before. And yet…<br/>
</span>
  <span>“That’s what you are, aren’t you? Half creeper, half player.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>Doc blinked again. He’d never thought to put a name to what he was, not a serious one anyway. Freak, monster, abomination… </span>
  <em>
    <span>Those </span>
  </em>
  <span>were the types of words he’d use to describe himself. Not ‘creeper hybrid’.<br/>
</span>
  <span>And yet it fit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some part of him registered that he wanted to </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>these players, who had inexplicably waltzed into his heavily armed base, played cards waiting for him, and then invited him to a world run by a man who’d chased him around through several while casually dropping a term to describe himself. He placed a torch on the wall, hoping the light would reach far enough in, and appraised the two.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cleo had long red hair running in messy waves down her back, and bright green eyes set in unnaturally pale skin. Her clothes were torn, there was a flower crown set in her hair, but she seemed mostly normal in the warm light the torch gave off. <br/>
</span>
  <span>Jevin was a different story. While his white hoodie and black pants seemed normal, the shiny, translucent blue skin was another story. And then there was the way his eyes were set beneath the outer layer, the opaque core…<br/>
</span>
  <span>Jevin was a slime. A slime in the shape of a player, a slime wearing clothes, a slime that was blue instead of green. But a slime.<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Don’t you know it’s rude to stare?” Jevin’s mouth twisted into an amused smile, and there was no venom in those words. <br/>
</span>
  <span>“I-”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Anyway, back on track!” Cleo interrupted, clapping her hands. <br/>
</span>
  <span>“Right,” Jevin agreed, “So we have these things called plugins- you know, they-”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“I know what plugins are.” Doc sighed. “I’m not an idiot.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Never said you were,” Jevin retorted. “So mostly, ours aren’t anything special- only one person needs to sleep to skip the night, for example- but we do have some that are custom-made for, ah, specific hermits.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Just say ‘us’, Jev.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Right. So they’re specifically tailored so the world treats us as normal players- we get attacked by mobs and whatnot- but they also… how do I explain it? They ‘switch off’ the mob instincts. So Cleo will stop trying to eat random people, for example.”<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Or Jevin will stop multiplying every time he falls off a cliff.” Cleo retorted.<br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They devolved into good-natured banter that Doc tuned out. Cleo had tried to eat people? But she seemed human…<br/>
</span>
  <span>He looked at her closely. Before, he hadn’t noticed the claws, the hollow cheeks, the way she didn’t seem to be breathing. He started to see the way her pale skin had a green tinge offset by the orange light, the way her teeth seemed to be sharp, the way her torn clothing might be like that for a reason. <br/>
</span>
  <span>It almost seemed like a bad joke. </span>
  <em></em>
    <span>A zombie and a slime walk into a cyborg creeper’s lair…</span><br/>
<em></em>
  <span>Plugins that make it safe for mob hybrids.  People apparently fine if a zombie messes up and tries to eat them. Xisuma remembering me and explicitly inviting me to join his world...<br/>
</span>
  <span>“All right,” Doc said, cutting into Jevin’s long, involved explanation as to how Cleo could not break his legs when he had no bones, “tell me about Hermitcraft.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And then he joined Hermitcraft and the rest is history.</p><p>Yeah, I have no idea what this is. Is it accurate? No. Does it blatantly ignore Doc lore? Probably. Did I write it anyway? Yes. </p><p>I'm tired. Have fun.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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